Fire and Reflections
by HVK
Summary: Zuko has some thoughts on his life to date, the sins of his family and nation, and how some things relate to the nature of Firebending. Set after The Southern Raiders and before The Ember Island Players.


Set at some point after _The Southern Raiders_, this is the consequence of me trying to keep my skills sharp by writing a drabble a week. Zuko's become my favorite character, ironically _after _I started researching Book Fire. I'm a sucker for redemption stories: it's why I like Gaara from Naruto and Abel Nightroad from Trinity Blood, after all.

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar-The Last Airbender. That belongs to Brian, Mike and Nickolodean. By the way, I saw the trailer for _The Last Airbender _on _Revenge of The Fallen_, and I am looking forward to it. Seriously! I'm still geeking out over it!

* * *

I used to think I knew the nature of Firebending, but then I used to believe many things that were wrong.

Things like the lie all in the Fire Nation were taught, the lie that was started by Sozin and perpetuated by Azulon and my own father, the lie that they believed in so blindly that for them it was truth enough to commence a war that started with the anhillation of an entire people. I sometimes wonder if Sozin ever felt the _reality _of what he had done by destroying a part of the balance of the nations forever; while it would be nice to think so, that my great-grandfather felt the impact of what he had done, the evidence is against him ever showing a shred of remorse over anything.

He allowed his best friend to die for his dreams of conquest; such people do not often let themselves face reality and admit their selfish dreams for the ashes they are.

It seems that the legacy of my family has become one as dark and shameful as what it has bequeathed to the Fire Nation as a whole; as the Fire Nation has become a symbol of fear, evil and death, so too has my family done far more than it's far share of evil. From the betrayal of the dragons and using their gift to us for death to the extermination of the Air Nomads, my ancestors have commited so much evil, something that I am not exempt from. Far from my own crimes, the sins of my family fall on my own shoulders, and I don't know if I can ever redeem my ancestry. Restore the balance of the world? That's what I am destined to do. Fix what my family has done? I can try. End this war once and for all? In all honesty, I don't know if we can do that without dying in the process, but I do know that all of us are willing to die to save all our people from this madness.

But I doubt that I can ever do enough to wash the evil that is my legacy from my hands. It's a stain on my soul that's as ugly as the scar on my face, and every bit as evidence of the person that my father really is.

It's funny, actually, in some twisted way. The Fire Nation has twisted the meaning of fire so badly that the rest of the world now only associates our element with death and destruction, but in essence the principle is still the same. Fire is, in the end, passion made physical. Passion, emotion, the drive to survive and all the other motives to keep moving forward are all the same in that they _burn_; they have a life of their own. And like those things, a fire that stops burning isn't sleeping, but dead.

It's funny, because it's perverse. As Aang said, Firebending is energy, life in miniture, yet almost no one, even those for whom it is a birthright, sees it as anything but a weapon. All the drive that fuels a Firebender these days is exactly what shouldn't; the rage and hate that brings fire from breath and turns those same feelings on another, eating their flesh and leaving nothing but blackened bones. Just as my family has twisted the Fire Nation into something like a dark mockery of what it used to be, of what it _should _be, so too have we warped our own sacred art. It seems so sad that only myself, Aang and the Sun Warriors truly understand what Firebending is.

And, of course, Uncle. Looking back, I wish so deeply that I had listened to him more often than I did instead of acting on the bitterness and pride that I so often confused for guilt and shame. Now I _know _what guilt and shame are; thinking of the time Uncle spent in a cell while I was returned to my father's graces is all it takes for my stomach to twist like a knife has been thrust into it, and it's a bittersweet agony when I think of all the shameful things I have done over the years. It's a feeling made all the worse by the family I have become part of.

The Avatar-no, _Aang's_ team, his friends, his family took me into their fold. It began simply because they needed me, because they had no other options for him to learn Firebending, but as I know all too well, there are things that people cannot experience without growing closer. Journeying to the Sun Warrior's civilization, rescuing Suki and Sokka and Katara's father, tracking down the murderer of their mother...those times brought me closer into the group, and now they are more of a family than I have felt since my mother vanished, so long ago it's hard to remember her at all.

This family is strange, composed of people from all of the Four Nations that were meant to be, and it feels so _right_, so true in some synchronistic way that I can't help but feel destiny's hand in all this, as well as our own choices. Aang and I were already connected by virtue of the fact that his last incarnation and my mother's grandfather were the same person, but even with my betrayal at Ba Sing Se, even after all that I had done to destroy the hope of the world and deliver him to my father, we have become something akin to brothers. We have many things in common, after all; we have both been marked. We are both scarred. We have both lost someone so dear to us that the pain drives us, even past the grief and anguish at their loss. And we both bear a destiny to save the world: him because it is his duty as the Avatar, me because it is my family that began this stupid war. It falls to me, the unfavored son, to fix what my great-grandfather broke.

And his friends are no less important to me now. Knowing them, being around them, makes things clearer somhow. Now so many things that Uncle told me are starting to make sense. It makes me wish that I had joined them sooner, even as much as I know that it probably would never have happened if I hadn't been forced on this hunt for Aang to being with. If I hadn't lived amongst Earth Kingdom commoners or seen what the Fire Nation really was to the rest of the world, I wouldn't have understood the insanity behind the war.

The idea disturbs me.

Now, though, that I am with them, a great many things are altogether clearer. Just as they have led me to understand the true nature of my country has become, just as my journey with Aang to the Sun Warriors taught me about true Firebending, just as my intrusion into the Boiling Rock prison with Sokka freed his father and friend while leading us to understand another better, just as much as my willingness to help Katara find her mother's murderer led her to forgive me, there is so much that I now owe to the Avatar group that I don't think that I will ever be able to repay it all.

A strange idea, given that I am one of them now.

The shame abides, but coexists with hope, coming together and driving me onward. My shame eats at me still, leaves me empty at the thought of what I have done to the people I have come to think of as my _real_ family, but with every day that passes, it hurts a little less. Not because I ignore it and not because I don't care about it-indeed, I cannot remember a time when I cared _more_-but because I have done things to set things right. And I will _die _trying if that's what it takes to restore things, both with my friends and my country.

Knowing this makes me happier than I've been for a long time. There isn't the hurt of feeling that I somehow _deserved _the scar on my faces and the worse ones inside. There's no constant battle within myself over what's right or wrong, because I know the truth now. And best of all, I'm starting to feel more like _me _than I did as either a delusional prince, banished or not.

My mother told me to never forget who I am. But I did it anyway; I became this embittered self-obsessed fool, deluded and arrogant. Just thinking of the things I said to my uncle then is painful. Almost as bad as the things I _did_. But by the same token, that quest to capture Aang led me to his group; losing my ship at the North Pole led to Uncle and me traveling through the Earth Kingdom, which put me in drect contact with people who saw a side to the Fire Nation the schools never taught us, a side the propaganda never touched upon or even hinted at, for good reason. And then, even after the shame of betraying my Uncle, it laid the foundation for my ultimate decision to join Aang's group.

It's a strange thought, how even the after-effects of some of my worst decisions have led me to my best one. I believe now that Uncle was right, and it was always my destiny to atone for the sins of my country, and my family. Perhaps in trying to do so, I can do the same in some small part for my own.

That's just one of the things that I know to be right. This surety doesn't apply to as many things as I wish, but I'll take these small victories where I can.


End file.
